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Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Today's blogger, Erin Weinman, is a history major at Rutgers University. This post is the story of her favorite project during her summer internship at the David Library of the American Revolution.

By Erin Weinman

My internship
at the David Library ends today, and when I look back
on the pastsix weeks, I think I was able to absorb much more
actual knowledge of life in Revolutionary America than any class could
ever allow me to learn.

Librarian Kathie Ludwig asked me to undertake a
very interesting task:transcribing a series of letters written by a Revolutionary War soldier named
Oliver Reed. The letters are part of a family
collection, and the current custodians permittedthe David Library to digitize them.My job was
to make transcriptions so that Library patrons can enjoy easy access.At first, the letters were a
bit difficult to read, but as a history student, transcribing is an important skill I must acquire if I want to become a
historian.

The
letters ended up being one of the most fascinating series of personal accounts
I have ever read. I had the choice to write a research paper for my senior
capstone at Rutgers University, but I
chose instead to come to the David
Library to experience what it is like to be a historian, and nothing could be more “hands-on” than this project. Although my job was
simply to transcribe, I was able to
learn who Oliver was on a personal level. These were his words that I was reading, his
personal thoughts that he had shared privately with his wife. Once I finished
all the transcribing, I was eager to learn more about the man who had written
these letters and with help from Kathie and from Richard Wood, a volunteer at the
David Library, I was able to flesh out
the story of Oliver. We were all amazed at what came up, and I soon learned the fascinating history of Oliver’s regiment, including the fact that it marched through my
hometown of Somerville, New Jersey.

While many great American patriots
are well known, the letters allowed a peek into the life of an average soldier.
Oliver Reed of Pomfret, Connecticut first
enlisted in the army during Lexington where he served for 12 days. Before long,
he was a sergeant in the 20th Continental Regiment. His heartfelt
letters humanize a man who might
otherwise be lost to history, giving voice to his longing for his children, as
well as his cravings for pickles and cider, andtheydescribe
his struggles with chronic illness. It’s a part of a soldier’s
life that is rarely seen when studying the American Revolution, and amazingly, the David Library’s collection allowed
me to bring Reed’s story to
fuller life in relation to the ongoing war.

Born in 1745, Oliver married Betty
Force and moved to Pomfret in time for the birth of their first child, a daughter, Nabby. By 1776, Oliver
was off in Cambridge and marching to New York for the Battle of Long Island.
Using the letters of George Washington, soldier cards and a multitude of
secondary resources, I was able to piece together the
world of Oliver Reed by forming a
timeline of historical events including the siege of Philadelphia, the
battles of Trenton and Princeton, and eventually Valley Forge. Along the way, I discovered a lot about the 20th
Continental (later renamed Fourth Connecticut) Regiment and its leaders, Capt.
Beriah Bill, Capt. Stephen Brown and Col. John Durkee.

The letters do more, however, than just piece
together a possible campaign trail. They
allow us to see what it was like to be an average soldier, or to be a woman on the home front. Oliver
himself was constantly sick
and repeatedly expressed his desire to go home, even just for a few
weeks. He wanted to provide for his family, send gifts to his children from
Boston and eat real food. “I want sum of your pickels to Eat Long with Cold
meat”, he wrote. “I want sum
sider too”.

The
home front was perhaps even more tragic. In August 1777, Betty wrote to Oliver
about the deaths of two of their children. Records show that a third child died
just days after the letter was written. Betty had
little support and relied on the help of neighbors for milk and wood.
Eventually, she took her surviving son, Oliver Jr., and moved him to her
in-laws’ in Wrentham, Massachusetts.

I’m
pleased to report that I was invited to write an article about the Oliver Reed
letters for the website allthingsliberty.com (Journal of the American
Revolution). My article
follows the lives of Oliver and Betty as the war continued. The emergence of Oliver’s letters reveals a previously undiscovered story
that illuminates the life of a commonRevolutionary era soldier. Special
thanks to both Richard and Kathie
for their help with this project. It was an
opportunity I never thought I would have as an undergraduate. The article is scheduled to be published on allthingsliberty.comthis August.

The Oliver Reed Letters, a part of
the David Library Digital Archives, are currently being curated.The Library will be making the digital
letters available to researchers in the near future.

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Erin Weinman of Somerville, NJ is a senior history major at Rutgers University. She is interning at the David Library this summer.﻿﻿﻿﻿

﻿

Erin Weinman

The Fourth of July is just around the corner, and the nation is preparing once again to celebrate our founding
history. The David Library is home to an extensive collection on the
Declaration of Independence, some of the signers and the events that surrounded America's declaration of independence from England. Why not pick up a little summer reading to get you in the spirit (of '76)? The following books are available at the David Library (call numbers are the David Library's), but you are likely to find some of these at your local public library or bookseller as well.

Allen, Danielle. Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2014. Call number 7510.

Casey,
Robert E. The Declaration of
Independence: Illustrated Story of its Adoption. New York: Illustrated Publishers, 1914. Call number 1481.

Ellis,
Joseph J. American Sphinx: The Character
of Thomas Jefferson. New York: Alfred K.
Knopf, 1997. Call number 4494.

Fowler,
William M. The Baron of Beacon Hill: A
Biography of John Hancock. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1979. Call number 569.

Miller,
Marla R. Betsy Ross and the Making of
America. New York: Henry Holt, 2010. Call
number 7177.

Rakove,
Jack N. The Annotated U.S. Constitution
and Declaration of Independence. Cambridge,
Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009. Call number 7184.

Travers,
Len. Celebrating the Fourth: Independence
Day and the Rites of Nationalism in
the Early Republic. Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press,
1997. Call number 4539.

Additionally, there's a good article in the July/August 2010 issue of American Spirit, the magazine of the Daughters of the American Revolution by Anthony, Lena, “Cannons and Camaraderie: The Earliest Fourth of July Traditions.” We have a copy at the David Library. If you live close enough, drop in at the David Library sometime between now and July 3 (the Library will be closed on July 4) to read it. Understanding the origins of our traditional Fourth of July celebrations may enhance the holiday for you this year.

Friday, May 15, 2015

Brianna Heverly of Yardley, PA is a senior at Rider University with a double major in History and Education and minor in Special Education. She is interning at the David Library this summer, and as she familiarizes herself with the collections, she decided to look into the role women played in the Continental Army.

Brianna Heverly

Although the American Revolution was fought by an army of
men, women played a crucial role in fighting for independence against the
British.Women worked together to
provide men with food, clothing, shelter, and support -- all necessary to win the war.Without these essentials, often provided
women in the role of camp followers, the Continental Army would not be equipped
enough to fight the British and win the war.

One of the
most known women of the American Revolution is Margaret Cochran Corbin,
otherwise known as “Captain Molly,” or Molly Pitcher.Captain Molly is recognized for taking over
charge of the cannon after her husband was wounded.She bravely fought until she was injured, but
her legacy lives on.Other women were
involved in the war even though they never fired a shot.They were brave enough to follow their
husbands to war to cook food for the soldiers to eat and sew clothing for them
to be protected from the elements.Some women
also followed the men into battle and would bring them water while they
fought.Although some of the women who
were involved in the war were those who wanted to be with their husbands, there
were still many others involved who did not have a husband or relative whom
they followed.

Continental
Army soldiers recognized the importance of women.In a diary of a soldier I came across at the
David Library, the soldier recognized the importance of women who nursed
injured soldiers and saved lives.Other
officers, such as Lieutenant John Charles Philip von Krafft, showed appreciation
to women who opened their homes to provide shelter as the men were
travelling.Von Krafft relied on women
to offer their homes to soldiers in order to escape the harsh elements.Another soldier, Joseph Plumb Martin, stated,
“The women in Pennsylvania, taken in general, are certainly very worthy
characters… [and were] well treated by them.”Despite the fact that paper was scarce during the war, these soldiers
took the time and paper to write, in letters and diaries, about these women and
their roles in the war.

The David
Library of the American Revolution has an abundance of sources about the role
of women in the Revolutionary War, including secondary source books about women
being camp followers.One of these,
Women Patriots of the American Revolution by Charles E. Claghorn, provided a
detailed list of women who lived during the Revolution.Next to each woman’s name was a brief
one-line summary of her contribution and/or connection to the war.If there was greater detail for a particular
woman, a greater in-depth description of her would be found in the heart of the
book. From these secondary sources, I
gathered that most women in the war were typically nurses, made clothing,
cooked the food, provided housing for the soldiers, and delivered messages.Some women even fought in battle by either
dressing up as a man or taking their husband’s place on the battlefield.

The David Library is first and
foremost a primary source library, and I found multiple primary resources,
including diaries of Continental Army soldiers, which supported the claims the
books made.

To find the
sources I needed, I used the catalogue on the David Library’s website.It’s easy to use and is organized in such a
way that allows for different kinds of searches.For example, because there are so many types
of sources at the David Library, such as books, pamphlets, microfilm, journals,
and so on, the catalogue allows the researcher to narrow their search to
exactly what they want and where in the library they will find it.If the user is still not sure, they can do a
broad search of the subject or title and find sources in all of these
categories.The catalogue includes short
descriptions of the books in the collection, which can help the user determine
whether or not the source is suitable for his or her research.

The David Library’s collections
hold an abundance of sources, fostering the thoroughness and reliability of any
project a researcher might undertake on the era of the American Revolution.

-----------------

Sources consulted for this blog post:

Blumenthal, Walter Hart.Women
Camp Followers of the American Revolution

Claghorn, Charles E.Women
Patriots of the American Revolution: a biographical dictionary

Compiled by: Cooke, Denis J.“17 Voices: The Diaries of Events and
Occurrences Surrounding the British Occupation of Philadelphia”

Mayer, Holly A.Belonging
to the Army: camp followers and community during the American Revolution

Rees, John.“… the
multitude of women”An Examination of
the Numbers of Female Campfollowers With the Continental Army

Rees, John.“The
proportion of Women which ought to be allowed…”An Overview of Continental Army Female Camp Followers

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Larry Kidder, pictured at right, is the author of "A People Harassed and Exhausted: The Story of a New Jersey Militia Regiment in the American Revolution." March is Women's History Month.

I have
been doing a lot of research lately on individuals in New Jersey who
experienced the War of Independence in various ways. A number of these people
are women, and during Women’s History Month it is appropriate to really focus on
the many roles women played during the war. Most of the time when we think of
the Revolution we tend to focus on military or political contributions and
don’t really think about how the political and military decisions made by leaders
affected the lives of everyday people not associated with the military, both
men and women.

One woman
whose actions were determined by events completely outside of her control was
Ann Whitall of Red Bank, along the Delaware River. Ann came from a devout
Quaker family and she was vehemently opposed to the use of war to solve
problems. Although she and her husband, James, tried to avoid the war, it came to their home in 1777 in a particularly violent way. Soldiers of the Patriot army came to their property and informed them that they were going to build a fort on it. James
reminded them that it was their war, not his, but this of course did not stop
them. The fort they built at Red Bank, Fort Mercer, was attacked on October 22
by about 1200 Hessians, but Ann refused to leave her house and sat down calmly
to do some spinning. A stray shot entered the house, but she did not panic,
merely removed to the cellar. Surviving the battle was not the end of her story
because when the firing ceased there were a number of wounded soldiers from
both sides who needed attention. Her opposition to war did not include ignoring
soldiers in need, so she turned her home into a hospital and worked hard to
care for the wounded with everything she had available. However, her pity for
the wounded was not without limits. She could not help reminding soldiers
complaining of their discomfort and broken condition that they had brought it
on themselves by participating in war.

Ann was
one of the huge number of ordinary people who simply wanted to go about their
everyday lives in a peaceful manner, trying to make the world a better place,
but who were caught up in tragic events. Her story is one of showing great
courage by not running from danger and also one of upholding humanitarian ideals
even while believing that the people in need brought on their own suffering.
Learning the story of Ann Whitall should be a reminder that we cannot control
what comes our way in life and the only thing we can control is how we deal
with it and whether it shatters or strengthens our ideals.

I first
learned about Ann while working on the Meet Your Revolutionary Neighbors
project for Crossroads of the American Revolution, a project that benefitted
from many hours at the David Library. That program seeks to identify and tell
the stories of a wide variety of men and women from throughout New Jersey who
experienced situations where they had to make decisions that would greatly
influence the course of their lives. The growing group of stories can be viewed
on the Crossroads website at http://www.revolutionarynj.org.

Who We Are

The David Library of the American Revolution is a specialized research library dedicated to the study of American history circa 1750 to 1800. We are open to the public Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm, admission free. The David Library is a non-profit educational institution. Our mission is the collection and dissemination of information on this early period of American history, and the support of related educational programs and scholarly research.

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